EPA leaving behind a big mess in Libby

There is a mathematical approach to everything. It is equally true that for everything there may be several different mathematical approaches.

One such mathematical claim regarding the Libby asbestos cleanup was recently published: Libby is 100,000 cleaner than before the Environmental Protection Agency arrived. It would be interesting for everyone to see exactly how this number was calculated. One would soon arrive at the conclusion that it was impossible to calculate this number, from either a soils or an air perspective since EPA simply does not have the numbers that existed before their arrival.

I would like to offer a somewhat different approach to the math, one from a financial and scientific perspective. It has been said that EPA has spent $540 million on the cleanup in Libby to date. There are three to four more years to go so this number will increase. It has also been said that the institutional controls that will be left in place after EPA is gone, will simply be additional clean up. This statement is mostly true, since EPA announced they would not honor the promises made in 2001 to provide a complete clean up. What makes it mostly true is that EPA is leaving behind homes and buildings with asbestos fibers inside them, and they are leaving behind non-use areas, that will undoubtedly become use areas as Libby grows, with one percent soils content of asbestos fibers contained within. This, combined with the monstrous load of asbestos fibers contained in the various creeks and rivers in Libby, that on the off year overflow their banks and leave behind fibers on the soils, we begin to get to a more realistic view of how much cleaner Libby is.

I think it is fair to say that EPA has cleaned up about half of the Libby asbestos load. We can leave the rivers and creeks out of it, which should contain more fiber in their bottoms than all the fiber ever brought into Libby. So let’s say one half of the cleanup is done. One cannot judge such things on the appearance of parks or properties. It can be judged on the amount of fiber that was knowingly left behind in soils and in homes. All of these homes will require the removal of the asbestos fibers in coming years.  All of the nonuse areas will be considered for use or actually used over a period of time.

So, of the $540 million, exclusive of testing and administrative costs, since there are three more years of expenditures to go, that leaves roughly $540 million to go when EPA leaves. Let’s say I am wrong by half and use $270 million instead that will need to be covered somehow by institutional controls or further cleanup provided by EPA that increases with inflation the longer it takes to accomplish.  

What this means is that EPA is leaving behind more financial grief and more health risk, if we can equate dollars to health risk, for Libby than was spent in the number one most expensive EPA cleanup of all time before Libby came to light, at $200 million in Pitcher, Okla. If the cleanup were to continue full steam, just taken over by the State of Montana, it would roughly take another seven and one half years to complete, after EPA leaves. That is 10.5 years or more from today.

Libby’s leaders, and the residents themselves, need to be able to present to the people of Libby a mathematical analysis that makes this worth overlooking in favor of allowing EPA to leave or to install institutional controls. I am pretty certain there is no math that will justify EPA’s departure, leaving behind, in colloquial language, a bigger mess than any other mess EPA has ever even encountered before, after cleaning it up.

— Terry Trent is a biologist and asbestos researcher.